Priest shortage brings change to local churches

Three local parishes will form cluster under a single pastor, associate

By Ed Nadolski

Editor in Chief

Three Catholic parishes in the Burlington area will be served by a single pastor and an associate pastor come June under a new leadership plan designed to address the shortage of priests in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

That’s a significant change from the current configuration in which each parish has its own pastor. However, the growing priest shortage has arrived in the area for 2014 as two of those three priests are retiring.

Members of the three parishes – St. Mary Immaculate Conception and St. Charles Borromeo of Burlington, and St. Joseph’s of Lyons – learned of the plan, which is endorsed by Archbishop Jerome Listecki, Sunday at all Masses.

According to the announcement, Fr. James Volkert, the current pastor at St. Mary Parish, has agreed to become the pastor of the three-parish cluster. A new associate pastor will begin in June, which is typically the month new pastoral assignments take effect in the archdiocese.

St. Charles and St. Joseph’s are currently served by separate pastors – Fr. Steve Amann and Fr. John Baumgartner, respectively, but both are retiring. Amann has been on medical leave in recent months, leaving St. Charles without a full-time pastor.

Fr. Sergio Lizama, who serves the area’s Hispanic population, including services at St. Charles, will continue in that capacity.

Volkert, who currently splits his time 60/40 between St. Mary’s and a teaching position at St. Francis Seminary, will become the full-time pastor for the three-parish cluster.

Listecki breaks news

Archbishop Listecki initially announced the pending change during a confirmation Mass last week involving students and families from all three parishes. The churches then followed up with the official announcement on Sunday.

Barbara Scherrer, the pastoral council chairwoman at St. Mary Parish, said she anticipates some pitfalls initially, but believes the collaborative effort will be good for all Catholics in the area.

“I think there’s an insecurity with some people at this time,” she said. “People are very parochial. But we have to be bigger than that. I think everyone will step up to the challenge.”

Scherrer said the leaders of the pastoral councils at the three parishes have been meeting regularly since 2012 and are already ahead of the curve when it comes to collaborating.

“We talked, we prayed and we came to some very interesting conclusions,” she said.

Scherrer pointed to the tri-parish Lifeteen program – the religious education program for high school students – as a successful collaborative effort.

The biggest challenge, she said, will be adjusting to the obvious changes, such as Mass schedules. With only two priests on staff, the three churches will be limited to a total of six Masses each weekend – down from the current eight, Scherrer said.

However, she said she is confident members of all three parishes will eventually embrace the changes as the best way to sustain and advance the mission of the Catholic Church in the face of the priest shortage.

“I think we’ll all be richer for that,” Scherrer said. “I really think (the mission of the church) is the important message.”

Plan is in place

The framework for the cluster configuration is included in the archdiocese’s “2020 Parishes and Pastoral Leadership Plan” and is based on three factors facing Catholic parishes in southeastern Wisconsin.

Those factors as outlined in the plan are:

• From 2010 to 2020, the number of priest retirements will exceed ordinations resulting in a projected 40 percent reduction in the number of priests serving in parish ministry;

• The costs of operating parishes and funding ministries are escalating rapidly and parishes can gain economies of scale by collaborating with other parishes; and

• The one mission of the Catholic Church, shared by all parishes, can be carried out more effectively by combining efforts and sharing resources.

The archdiocese covers 4,758 square miles and serves nearly 600,000 Catholics in southeast Wisconsin, including those in Dodge, Fond du Lac, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha counties.

Under the plan for the archdiocese, the current configuration of 203 parishes will be reduced to a total of 100 clusters or parishes by 2020. Of that number, approximately 175 parishes will be brought together to form 72 clusters while 28 freestanding parishes remain.

Autonomy remains

The clustering, however, does not necessarily eliminate the autonomy of the individual parishes. While the cluster arrangement creates the opportunity for collaborative staffing, structures and ministries, “the parishes continue to function as individual canonical entities as well as civil corporations,” the plan states.

Under the plan, the three local parishes will determine how they will work together and what services they will share. The plan offers six organizational models ranging from separate entities under one pastor on up to a full merger of the clustered parishes into a single entity.

“Clusters, therefore, will follow similar models but will be as unique as the parishes that form them,” the plan states. “Clusters have operated for decades in various parts of the county without merging.”

To what extent the local parishes share resources and services will be determined by Volkert in consultation with the pastoral councils of the three churches, Scherrer said. Volkert could not be reached for comment prior to deadline for this story.

Whether the collaborative effort will eventually extend to the elementary schools operated by both St. Mary and St. Charles remains to be seen. The archdiocese is currently studying the dynamics of its schools and is working to formulate a similar long-term plan for education that encourages regional cooperation, according to the leadership plan.